Chief Judge of Kogi State, Hon. Justice Josiah Majebi, has counselled the Gwatanas to take solace in the fact that their late father lived a good life and has passed generational blessings to them.
He gave the admonition at Akakana community in Bassa Local Government Area of Kogi State during the burial of one of their leaders, Pa Daniel Gwatana Ndazhaga, who died on the 15th of last month at the age of 84. He was laid to rest yesterday in the peaceful and serene agrarian community.
He is father to Hon. Justice Moses Gwatana of the High Court of Justice of Kogi State.
Expatiating on his concept of generational blessings, the CJ said: “We Christians are always talking about generational curses but do we know that we have the blessings of regeneration? That is generational blessings.”
He said there is a generational blessing in the ability to take care of parents and give them befitting burial because the person’s children would equally reciprocate with blessings too.
“Do you know that if by the special Grace of God you are able to take care of your father, your mother and able to give a befitting burial like this, it simply means that you will have children, your children will be blessing to you, you are going to live a long life and your children will bury you. I am sure this is the portion of my lord and so shall it be in Jesus name,”
Justice Majebi urged the bereaved not to grieve as he said accounts given by mourners and sympathizers
during the funeral service were evidence that Pa Ndazhaga was fulfilled and there should be no sorrow. To him, the death was an exercise of God’s supreme power.
“What has happened that we’re gathered here is an exercise of that supreme power and in accordance with the word that there is a time to be born and a time to die. The joy that we share today is that this scripture has been fulfilled in the life of our father” he said.
He further stressed the inevitability of death while asking the community to focus on the glorious departure of the sage and focus on counting the virtues he left behind.
In his words:”May I, at this time, ask the children, the relatives, the well-wishers and the church to be comforted with the fact that number one, there was nothing that you could possibly have done to ensure that Baba did not die that you did not do. I am very sure that if there had been an option to keep Baba alive, my lord Gwatana that I know would have pursued that process.
“That you did not offend Baba to warrant asking for his forgiveness before he died, because we have bastard children whose parents died and were not happy that they had them as children. But we thank God that that is not your case at this moment. For that, there will be no need for you to sorrow.
“That Baba has lived a good life and the testimony is very clear. We have his son that I know, I don’t know of others but just this one that I know, he is like, as you have rightly said that he is an ambassador of this community to everywhere, he is an ambassador of the state Judiciary. He is a very intelligent Judge, committed and peaceful. I can assure you that everybody in the Judiciary, all the Judges and all staff of the Judiciary, love him so much and you can see the evidence that we are all virtually here.”
Pa Ndazhaga was a notable prosperous farmer whose generosity was boundless and nondiscriminatory according to the pastor and some members of his church, the ECWA Church.
His remains were committed to mother earth at his residence immediately after the funeral service amidst wailing and eulogies for an evangelist and one of the Bassa 29 patriots and heroes who were sometime ago sent to Idah prison for protesting against corruption in the construction of the community bridge known and called Akpada Dodo.